Former New Jersey governor and presidential Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie told CNN that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was right in his initial assessment about whether former president Donald Trump was the strongest candidate to beat Joe Biden in a general election contest.
Earlier this week, Mr McCarthy said he was not sure that Mr Trump was the strongest candidate to beat Mr Biden.
“Can he win that election? Yeah he can,” he said. “The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that answer.”
Mr McCarthy later backtracked in an interview with Breitbart in which he said that Mr Trump is in a stronger position than he was in 2016 and reportedly called Mr Trump to apologise.
Mr Christie said that Mr McCarthy did so because he has to deal with a contentious Republican conference, with only a slim majority in the House of Representatives. Mr McCarthy had to endure a marathon 15 rounds of votes earlier this year before he became speaker.
“Because he needs to count to 218 every day, every day, given the rules that he's operating under,” Mr Christie said, citing the number needed to reach a majority in the House. “So it's not an excuse for Kevin, but it's an explanation as to what he's up to. He's trying to get things done in the House of Representatives. He's managing a very difficult caucus, and a very slim majority.”
Mr Christie launched his campaign mostly to criticise the twice-impeached and twice-indicted former president whom he endorsed in 2016.
“But I think his first statement is what he really believes, which is that he doesn't think Donald Trump is the strongest candidate to be present,” Mr Christie said of Mr McCarthy.
Mr Christie faces an uphill battle to become the Republican nominee. A St Anselm College poll showed that while he is in third place in New Hampshire, he is only at six per cent, far behind Mr Trump and Florida Gov Ron DeSantis.
